Seems like d ja vu all over again

PAPER RADIO:

July 28, 2003|By Frank Michels, Staff Writer

It may seem like déja vu all over again as we head for the presidential election of 2004.

It's almost like the time when the elder George Bush was president. He had just waged a successful war against Iraq, liberating oil-rich Kuwait from the Iraqi invaders and was riding high in the polls.

And the younger now President George Bush several months ago declared the cessation of major combat operations but not the end of the war. Like his dad, the younger Bush had been riding very high in public opinion polls. His job approval rating reached a high of 90 percent in September of 2001 and has declined 32 percent to 58 percent while his present disapproval rating is 38 percent, according to CNN/USA Today/Gallop polls. Other polls show Bush's disapproval rating approaching 50 percent.

Young Bush is having success in his re-election fund-raising efforts, something expected by some pundits that will give him an edge against his Democrat challenger, whoever that might be.

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Whether he'll be able to convert all that cash to voter support is another thing.

I may be all wrong, but things don't seem to be going especially well for Bush as he begins his run for a second term in office. Will his campaign slogan be: "Four more years"?

But four more years of what, any good Democratic candidate should be asking.

Four more years of mushrooming national debt?

Four more years of job losses in an economy that has already lost millions of jobs in just a few years?

Four more years of record-high unemployment, highest in more than 10 years?

Four more years of daily deaths of American soldiers in Iraq because the president will not reach out for international help through the United Nations?

Four more years of funding the continuing war in Iraq at a cost of $2 billion a month? according to recent reports.

There's an old saying, "the chicken's going to come home to roost." I'm not sure what that means. But the cost of war will have to be paid sooner or later and it's unlikely to be beneficial.

And it makes me nervous and angry when I hear the president say we'll be in Iraq for "as long as it takes." I don't understand how long that is.

And it makes me uneasy about the future of the war when I hear generals predicting the U.S. is "one-step closer" to wiping out resistance because Saddam Hussein's sons were killed by our forces.

While the war in Iraq is not in anyway comparable to the Vietnam War, there were always pronouncements during that war about turning the corner and seeing "light at the end of the tunnel." There was no light - only many more years of death and destruction. Thousands died while peace was being negotiated then.

Will George Bush be blamed for economic bad times (that is, if the economy doesn't begin to make significant improvement) like his father and be a one-term president?